Venable is out of the lineup Saturday against the Pirates. Manager Bud Black has rid his lineup of lefty bats against southpaw Francisco Liriano, spelling Venable with Abraham Almonte in center field. Venable got off to a great start this month, recording multiple hits in each of his first four games, and he will likely continue to see near-everyday time moving forward.

Will Venable went 2-for-3 with a solo home run in Tuesday's loss to the Phillies. Venable put the light-hitting Padres up 1-0 in the third inning with the homer off of A.J. Burnett, but the lead wouldn't last long. It was one of Venable's rare positive offensive contributions this season, as he is now sitting on a .211/.278/.306 slash line with two home runs and 11 RBI in 198 plate appearances.

Will Venable filled up the box score Saturday against the White Sox, going 4-for-4 with two RBI, a stolen base, and a run scored. Venable had just three hits over his last seven games combined, so this was nice to see. While the 31-year-old is hitting just .213 with one home run and two stolen bases through 52 games, he's obviously capable of much better.

Will Venable returned to action on Wednesday May 28.

Will Venable was scratched from Monday's lineup due to a sore right foot. Venable was hit on the foot by a Jason Hammel pitch in the first inning of Sunday's game. He remained in and finished that contest but is evidently feeling the after effects. It doesn't appear at this point that any exams will be needed, so consider Venable day-to-day.

Will Venable went 2-for-4 with his first home run of the season in a win over the Marlins on Sunday. Venable homered off Henderson Alvarez to lead off the bottom of the first inning. He also walked and scored twice in the game. Venable joined the rare 20/20 club last season when he hit 22 home runs, so his power outage this year has been surprising. It's a microcosm of a tough start to the year for the 31-year-old.

Will Venable went 0-for-4 against the Diamondbacks on Friday to drop his OPS back under .500. So many Padres hitters have been so awful that it's probably not fair to single anyone out, but who said we had to be fair? Venable has a .190 average, no homers, two RBI and a 32/5 K/BB ratio in 100 at-bats. He's even 0-for-1 as a basestealer. Venable was an excellent regular last year and has been an underrated player almost his entire career, but he's bringing a bad team down right now. If he doesn't get it together this weekend, he should lose a lot of his playing time following Carlos Quentin's return.

Will Venable's struggles continued in Saturday's loss to the Nationals, going 0-for-4 with a pair of strikeouts. In Venable's defense, no one on the Padres could do anything against Tanner Roark who was terrific on the other side. The 31-year-old outfielder is hitting just .200/.227/.271 with no homers and two RBI in his first 25 games.

Will Venable had a two-run double in Sunday's win over the Tigers. After a nice 2013 season in which he hit .268 with 22 home runs, the runs batted in were Venable's first two of the new season. It was the outfielder's only hit of the day and his first hit in four games, giving him a .163 average to start the year. He's got plenty of time to turn that around, but he'll need to get going soon to retain his starting job once Cameron Maybin returns.

Batting eighth for the first time since last July, Will Venable went 0-for-4 on Saturday. That's a good way to get one of your better players going: bat him immediately in front of the pitcher so he gets nothing good to hit. Venable has struggled -- he's now 6-for-39 with just one extra-base hit -- but he deserves more rope after the way he played the last two years.